Jet sparks curiosity

People on the Kansas University campus and in downtown Lawrence noticed a military jet fly low over Jayhawk Boulevard and Allen Fieldhouse Friday afternoon.

A loud jet engine could also be heard. Several people described it as an F-16 jet that buzzed campus.

“What the heck was that??? Big plane just went fast and low over downtown Lawrence,” Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew tweeted at 3:42 p.m.

Military officials did not confirm the reason for the flight or where the jet was based.

“It was not aircraft from the Kansas National Guard,” said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General’s Office. “We aren’t sure where the aircraft are from.”

But she said Kansas officials Friday evening were still checking with other states, including the Texas National Guard.

Douglas County emergency dispatchers said they received several calls asking what the jets were.

“It was not a pre-arranged fly-over, and it had nothing to do with any KU event,” said Jill Jess, a KU spokeswoman.

FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory referred questions to the military because the agency does not comment on military aircraft, she said.

A spokesman at Whiteman Air Force Base southeast of Kansas City, Mo., said Friday the closest F-16 jets to here are based in Tulsa, Okla., with the 138th Fighter Wing of the Oklahoma Air National Guard. He said some F-16 planes had landed at Whiteman earlier this week and left the base Friday but further information was not available.

Lt. Col. Max Moss, an Oklahoma National Guard spokesman, said the jets in Lawrence were not from Tulsa. He said the base had pilots on a navigation mission but they were headed to Florida.

The acoustics in the tunnel that is downtown made it's place in the sky unclear right until it zipped over. I couldn't even begin to identify the model other than it was black, angular, and appeared to be flying sideways, if that means anything.

I was out with my dogs and I heard it. Was so loud I thought it was a big plane and right over my head, but couldn't see where it was. Then I heard the second one and happened to look towards the north (ku campus area) and saw the military plane.

I was able to look up in time to see a semi trailer folding up and turning into a wing. p.s. it was fighter jets not a bomber. they flew right over my house while i was grilling out. nice and loud too. cool!

It freaked me out because it was so loud. I went out side to check it out and saw the second fly over. The plane was doing a barrel roll, it was pretty sweet. Too bad the kids were sleeping, they would of loved to see it!

Are you aware that last Fall the Blue Angles didn't fly over the Golden Gate Bridge? We were there early, but the fog came in just before they were to start their show, so they couldn't do it. The whole air show couldn't perform.

It was great to hear someone else think of the Blue Angels in San Francisco!

The shooting suspect from Afghanistan was brought to Leavenworth today, my brother saw a C 130 with two F-16's flying escort. Would have been cool to see..He said the F-16's hit their afterburners as they crossed town and turned north...

Everyone in the world knew he was coming into Leavenworth today - it's been in national news for a couple of days now, so low key was lost a while ago. It makes sense that a jet would be in the air when a high-profile "terrorist's target" is incoming. I doubt the jet was an escort per se, but more of an insurance policy or it may have even been checking something specific out.

That also explains why nobody can give a straight answer. Routine exercises are way less of a secret than you'd think.

Read this on Yahoo News:
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, (L) 1st platoon sergeant (shooting suspect) was flown from Kuwait and arrived Friday evening at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the military's only maximum-security prison.

An Air Force cargo jet arrived at Kansas City International Airport, about an hour from the military prison, shortly after 9 p.m. Friday. Security was tight, with the terminal completely blocked off, and a convoy of unmarked vehicles pulled off the tarmac and out of the airport.

It was Doug Comptons new jet that he bought with the money he saved from the recent tax abatements from the city of Lawrence. He forgot to feed the zebra before heading to the game in Omaha so he zipped back to town to feed it.

I was on my route behind a building on 23rd when I looked up and clearly saw an
F 16 tomcat flying to the southeast over Dillons. I looked up and it looked to
be going at least 250 to 350 mph because I looked up again and it was gone.
This plane is capable of upwards of a thousand miles an hour and it looked
to be going sort of leisurely. I routinely see refueling tankers from the 190th
flying into Forbes Field. I also see the Chinook double rotor helicopters from time
to time.

Considering the F-14 is retired, I would say the F-16 is probably the most likely variation. If it had twin tails, it would have been either an F-15 (which looks an awful lot like the 14 except it has fixed wings), F-18, F-22, or F-35. The F-16 is much more likely around here, as I think the nearest F-18/F-22/F-35 can be found in Dallas.

It was one fighter jet, and it looked to fly a figure 8, banking sideways on the turns. I'm no expert, but I saw two vertical tail fins. I was on the east side of campus, and it was so low on the first pass that I saw a head in the cockpit!

Hm, interesting since the F/A-18 is usually associated with the Navy, seems away from home. That being said, I do remember getting to look in the cockpit of one when I happened to be at Forbes when one landed one night.

It is quite possible that it was a T-38. This is a trainer aircraft that some could conceivably mistake for an F-16. I often see a T-38 training around Topeka. If they were conducting nap of the earth exercise the aircraft would likely have travelled east along I-70 from Topeka and then turned south on its return to Topeka.

Far more likely to have been an Air Force aircraft. The F-18 is a Navy asset. While it's not impossible it is highly unlikely that it was an F-18 unless it was here for a specific reason (air show nearby). I also find it unlikely to have been an F-15. F-15's are typically used as bombers with long range air-to-air capability. If it was flying as low as witnesses say I can't imagine what the pilot would be training for. I'm finding it fun trying to figure out what everyone saw.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. We got a pretty good look at it at the dog park out by Clinton Lake. It flew east, very low (maybe 500 feet) over the dam, looped around Lawrence then came back even lower at maybe 250-300 feet, sideways. Just one aircraft, and it looked like a pilot screwing around waving the wings. But what struck me odd is that it seemed pretty well loaded up with sidewinders or maybe some fuel tanks. When it cruised back west over Clinton dam going west it really hauled a$$ out of here. My first thought that it was an F14 with the wings swept back, but that seems pretty unlikely. F-15 makes sense, although where it came from really doesn't. Was NOT an F16 or F18.

So, did anyone else notice the two single engine planes (WWII-era?) flying over south Lawrence today in formation at about 1:00? Couldn't tell what they were as they were almost directly overhead.

These seven problems are the premise of the book:
'The Seven Sins of Memory', by Daniel Schacter, PhD

1) Transience--the decreasing accessibility of memory over time. While a degree of this is normal with aging, decay of or damage to the hippocampus and temporal lobe can cause extreme forms of it. Schacter cited as a somewhat facetious example former President Bill Clinton's "convenient lapses of memory" during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. Clinton claimed in the hearings that he sometimes couldn't remember what had happened the previous week.

2) Absent-mindedness--lapses of attention and forgetting to do things. This sin operates both when a memory is formed (the encoding stage) and when a memory is accessed (the retrieval stage). Examples, said Schacter, are forgetting where you put your keys or glasses. He noted a particularly famous instance in which cellist Yo-Yo Ma forgot to retrieve his $2.5 million cello from the trunk of a New York City cab.

3) Blocking--temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-the-tongue syndrome. Schacter recounted the embarrassment of John Prescott, British deputy prime minister, when a reporter asked him how the government was paying for the expensive Millennium Dome. Prescott struggled to find the word "lottery," trying "raffles" instead.

4) Suggestibility--incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes. Psychologists Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, and Stephen Ceci, PhD, are among those well-known in this research.

5) Bias--retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs. Psychologist Michael Ross, PhD, and others have shown that present knowledge, beliefs and feelings skew our memory for past events, said Schacter. For example, research indicates that people currently displeased with a romantic relationship tend to have a disproportionately negative take on past states of the relationship.

6) Persistence--unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder. An example, said Schacter, is the case of Donnie Moore of the California Angels, who threw the pitch that lost his team the 1986 American League Championship against the Boston Red Sox. Moore fixated on the bad play, said Schacter, "became a tragic prisoner of memory," and eventually committed suicide.

7) Misattribution--attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't. Prominent researchers in this area include Henry L. Roediger III, PhD, and Kathleen McDermott, PhD. An illustration of it, said Schacter, is the rental shop mechanic who thought that an accomplice, known as "John Doe No. 2," had worked with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing; he thought he'd seen the two of them together in his shop. In fact, the mechanic had encountered John Doe No. 2 alone on a different day.

You are the newspaper, you are supposed to investigate and tell us what jet plane it was, and why it was flying low over Lawrence. All you do is pose the question most people had, so find the answer and print it!

We maybe seeing more of this with the private sales of former Soviet aircraft. They can be marked up to look like one of ours. Actually some are still in production due to the demand.

Some of the trainers are already in the hands of private pilots. I say maybe because the cost of the
"relatively" inexpensive aircraft just to fly without afterburners is mind blowingly expensive.

You can buy a flyable 40 passenger Yak jetliner for less than 100K, They are rightly nicknamed in Russia as the Kerosene burner due to the massive fuel demand, but hey how cool to fly into town on a Yak.

I'm not one of those people who gets freaked out by a low flyover. I caught a glimpse of it and I'm always just a little awed by the sheer power of those things as they go by. Maybe it's a "guy thing". BUT, to look at the paper this morning and discover that apparently we don't have any rights to know what it was or where it came from or even some vague idea what it was doing really bothers me. Actually it really pisses me off. What kind of arrogance leads the military to refuse to answer even the most basic questions about a low level flyover of a city by one of their (our) aircraft? Operational security? really? Didn't we pay for this?

For many years B-52's have had low level practice bomb training runs in SW Kansas and SE Colorado. Aviation charts clearly indicate these areas. And if you think you were startled, imagine being in a tiny Cessna or Piper and encountering one of these machines.

wake up..."they" don't know where the plane came from ....if that's true...wow....how do we know that pilot is not going to "SNAP"...the man should never fly again....get him some help....boys will be boys does not cut it.....

I do have to say, for a town that likes to think of itself as being cultured and the center of the universe, you sure are acting like a bunch of hicks as Rara said.

Look! There's one of them there air-o-planes!

Seriously, if seeing a jet fighter gets you this worked up, it just goes to show you don't get around much. You may be in Lawrence, but you've proved yourselves to be Kansans to the core .Stand proud Kansans. The rest of the world is laughing at you.

Well gosh, you big city folk and your big city jets. I hear in that New York City that they use those hovering fighter jets as taxi cabs. I sure can understand how a military jet making a low low pass over a populated area is no big deal to you.

No offense to anyone, but this is why eye witness testimony is always suspect. Most people on here saw something different. Remember this next time the newspaper reports on a trial and the claims of witnesses. People always see different things no matter how sincere they are.

Secondly, the military is always going to fain ignorance initially, but rest assured they are scrambling to find out what plane and pilot did this flyover. When they find out, this newspaper can report it. The air force or national guard is investigating.

There is a 1000 foot minimum flight rule for military aircraft in addition to strict rules forbidding flights over population centers. Both of these regulations seem to have been violated.

I spoke with an active duty Air Force Colonel in Special Forces command who told me when they find out the pilot of this flight, his career is over, if in fact, he violated the above rules.

You can be assured that someone one in authority is looking into it.

And it is true, some of these new pilots get this idea they can do hidden flybys for 30 seconds and impress their girlfriends or fraternity brothers, but in the end, their military careers are finished when they are found out.

What if this pilot had sudden equipment problems or clipped a tree or building and crashed in the city? What about if he encountered a small aircraft that was appropriately flying over Lawrence?

This is a pilot who may have displayed a total lack of concern or responsibility for Lawrence's citizens. Hopefully, soon we will all know.

Actually attorney1776 said " Both of these regulations seem to have been violated." Key word "seem", and it did seem (in italics for slight emphasis) to violate some aviation rule in regards to heights and towns and jets. Attorney1776's statement did not express that the aircraft did in fact break an aviation rule.
JackMcKee, you are right that there is no evidence, at this point, that a floor (technical term ;P) was violated. :D

All wrong, much easier explanation: It was Nelson Krueger giving himself a congratulatory spin over Lawrence so he could add some photographs to his monumental self-promotional collection throughout the Lawrence Airport.

My theory: Pilot who attended school or ROTC at KU and was performing a normal (training?) mission in the area got confirmation to veer over the Lawrence area on their (return) trip home. It would not be uncommon or unheard of for the C-130 which delivered the SSG to Leavenworth to have been accompanied by an escort if the escorting pilots needed to get flight hours. From my time in the Army, I can also say that it is not uncommon for Army transports to be served by Marine units such as an F-18.

I heard them, and then looked out my front window and saw them both they turned around above 23rd st maybe right above quicktrip? because I could see them turning right out my front window. I thought... "huh... I sure hope something doesn't malfunction and a neighborhood gets smashed." Then my second thought was "I didn't think they were supposed to fly that low in residental areas nevermind training in residental areas" then my final thought was....."oh tihs.....what if someone that wants to kill americans got into the military and is just randomly doing suicide attacks on neighborhoods and its happening all over" Then, they were gone. Poof.

I heard it (or them) at 23rd & Iowa. Only saw one and it looked silver, not black, but that could have been the sun shining on it. The pilot was showing off a bit, but I didn't see a figure eight. The plane was definitely too high to see a pilot.

It wasn't nearly as awesome as the Stealth Bomber that hovered next to KU's West Campus a day or two after 9/11.

Yes, clown, Stealth aircraft can hover. It was probably two to four minutes -just long enough for everyone (who wasn't scared and hiding under the bed) to go outside and get a good look and whoop and holler! Figure he either had a friend at KU or was a previous KU student.

Yes, clown, Stealth aircraft can hover. It was probably two to four minutes -just long enough for everyone (who wasn't scared and hiding under the bed) to go outside and get a good look and whoop and holler! Figure he either had a friend at KU or was a previous KU student.
March 17, 2012 at 8:41 p.m

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Your claim was that it was a bomber and it happened in 2001. Please enlighten us all by letting us know which stealth bomber had the capability of hovering in 2001.

Funny thing about that fly over, the military knows where every single one of its aircraft are at any given time. Its a thing call a transponder. NORAD as well as several other agencies track a specific code assigned to each plane. From the moment he leaves the ground till he touches down, they know his/hers location. So whoever did the fly by was know by the military before they even left Lawrence airspace. If that wasn't authorized, someone is in real deep Kimchi!!!

Here is my theory: We didn't hear about Staff Sgt. Bales being transferred to Ft. Leavenworth until this weekend. I think it had something to do with his transfer there and that is why we heard nothing about the fly-overs beforehand.